Welcome to “In Harmony with,” our ongoing series where we invite those who inspire us to share their stories and the rituals that help them stay grounded.
We’re excited to feature our longtime friend Donnie Soddu, a certified Shamanic Practitioner and Reiki Master. Donnie is also the Founder of High Light Rituals, where she offers shamanic healing and jewelry she describes as “energy work you can wear.”
We visited Donnie at home in Westport, Connecticut, where she lives, works, and creates. She invited us into her world and shared the rituals that keep her grounded, the journey that led her to energy healing, and how she helps others find greater balance, clarity, and connection.
You’re deeply rooted in energy work, something that can often feel inherited or passed down through generations. Was that the case for you? What was your upbringing like?
I grew up between Maryland and Virginia in a close family where spirituality was quite present. We prayed before meals and before bed, went to church every Sunday, and the women in my family also shared affirmations, burned incense to soothe our systems, and talked openly about premonitions and all sorts of intuitive things. I spent a lot of time outside as a child and was always drawn to crystals.
My work today is deeply rooted in lineage, just not in the sense that a living family member directly taught me the practices I use now. My ancestors—both men and women—are a very active part of my healing practice and are some of my most important teachers. They come through in healing sessions, meditation, dreams, and even when I’m walking in nature, offering guidance about my work and the clients I’m serving. And if you come to me for energy clearing, curse removal or extraction work, there’s a high likelihood my ancestral spirit team will facilitate the healing on your behalf. So for me, inheritance has not been about receiving a set of teachings from the generations immediately before me, it’s looked more like being in an ongoing apprentice-style relationship with the lineage itself.
On your website, you write that “motherhood cracked you open.” What did your life look like at the time, and what began to shift within you?
Before becoming a mother, my primary identity was “high achiever” or “striver,” at any cost really. When I had my first child, my son, I was living in New York City, working as a marketing VP for a luxury consumer brand. I was used to being competent, productive, and conventionally successful.
Motherhood introduced me to feelings and a way of experiencing the world that I couldn’t intellectualize my way through. It made me much more porous. Suddenly I *needed* to be in nature and out of NYC. My intuition became louder, my sensitivity increased, and I started having experiences that made it very difficult to maintain that my present corporate driven existence was all there was (or all I wanted). These feelings got even louder with the birth of my second, a daughter.
Having children also connected me much more deeply to lineage. It made me think about what gets passed from one generation to the next—not only genetically, but through emotional patterns, beliefs, and energy. Interestingly, ancestral healing and lineage work have since become a major focus of my shamanic practice.
When I say “motherhood cracked me open,” I really mean that. It disrupted the identity I had built and created enough space for a completely different part of me to come forward.
How did High Light Rituals come to be as you transitioned into energy healing?
High Light Rituals began through jewelry and crystals before I fully understood what it was becoming.
It actually started solely as an energetic jewelry brand, but has evolved into what I like to call a house of shamanic healing.
Looking back, I think the jewelry was a bridge the spirits gave me into deeper shamanic practice because “spiritual jewelry brand” was a language I could understand. Through jewelry, I began learning how to work with energy.
As my training in energy healing and shamanic practice deepened, the role of the jewelry became clearer. It wasn’t separate from the healing work; it was one of the main ways I could anchor it. An energetic shift, a prayer, an intention, or something revealed in a session could be carried into a physical object that someone could continue to wear and be in relationship with.
That is still central to High Light Rituals today. The jewelry is not an accessory to the healing practice; it is one of the primary ways I work. I choose stones intentionally, bless and consecrate pieces through ceremony, and in my custom work, the jewelry is created directly from what comes through for a client in a private healing or reading.
Both High Light Rituals and My July grew from deeply personal experiences. We’ve always thought of My July as a way to raise awareness around chronic and invisible illness while also honoring the unexpected beauty and silver linings that can emerge from difficult experiences.
Do you see High Light Rituals similarly—as a way of translating something deeply personal and intangible into objects people can hold, wear, and carry with them?
Absolutely. I think that’s actually one of the reasons jewelry became such an important medium for me.
So much of healing is invisible, although many of us can definitely feel it! Energy is invisible. An intention, an ancestral connection, a moment of clarity in a healing session—none of those things are tangible enough to hold onto so my jewelry gives them somewhere physical to live.
I love the idea that something deeply energetic can also be physically beautiful and live inside ordinary life. You put it on in the morning. You touch it throughout the day. It becomes part of you in a very different way than something that only exists during a ceremony or healing session.
As a mother, how do you introduce wellness and spiritual practices to your children while still giving them the freedom to simply be children?
They see my practice because it's part of our life. They see me meditate, drum, tend the garden, make offerings, and welcome clients to our home. We can talk about energy, nature, ancestors, intuition, or whatever questions naturally come up. But I want their relationship with those things to remain curious and their own.
When I do teach them practices, it’s usually situationally specific and intended to help them feel regulated and calm. When they feel overwhelmed, I’ve taught them how to sit and do a grounding pose we call “quiet mind.” When the energy feels off in a space or situation they know they can always imagine their own bubble of light that surrounds them and helps them stay “untouched” or sovereign. They love getting Reiki before bed—things like that. I’m sure I’ll facilitate a cord cutting or two once they start dating. :)
Children already have an incredible capacity for wonder and relationship with the natural world. I don’t feel a need to put too much structure into that. Sometimes the most spiritual thing they can do is dig in the dirt, sing with the birds, collect a beautiful rock, or climb the trees.
My goal isn’t to raise children who practice exactly as I do, although it would be cool to have one as an apprentice one day! I just try to give them permission to be open and to trust their own experience of the world.
Your work asks you to give so much of your energy to others. What rituals or practices help you replenish your own?
Water is so important for me. I take clearing baths regularly, especially after periods of intense client work. Every Friday, I visit the river or the beach to meditate, pick up trash, and give offerings to make sure I set aside time to connect and just be. I generally spend a lot of time outside and in my garden. Tending to the plants and trying to be a helpful part of the ecosystem keeps me calm and brings me into my body very quickly.
My personal care rituals tend to be sensory and simple. I love beautiful scent, oils, baths—things that make being in my body feel like a treat. That’s part of why products like Imaginary Picnic Body Oil and Woods Nature Spray fit naturally into my routine; I’m very drawn to personal care that can turn into a mundane moment (like putting on Woods!) into a blissful ritual.
What does living in harmony mean to you?
Living in harmony means being in the right relationship with myself, with other people, with the natural world, and with spirit.
I don’t think harmony means that everything is peaceful all the time. In life, there are storms, death, competition, decay, regeneration. So naturally, harmony is something more dynamic. To me, living in harmony is knowing when to push and when to yield, when to speak and when to listen, when to intervene, and when to let things run their course.
—
Find Donnie:
High Light Rituals Instagram
—
Interviewed by Micaela Hoo, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, My July. Photos by Jerri Graham of Jerri Graham Photography for My July. Photos 1 and 8 courtesy of Donnie Soddu.
